Baby Blue:
Out of the Blue Volume II (The World Will Know)

Release Date: 28 November 2005

Reviewed By: Luke Davis

1. Intro

2. Sometimes (ft Selah)

3. Blow My Mind

4. Dreamin’ Parts 1 & 2

5. Love Story ’05 (ft Sway and Seuwese)

6. I’m a Hustla

7. I Don’t Care( ft Insane)

8. Sometimes remix

9. Only You

10. T-Ster (Interlude)

11. Roll Wid Us (Akala ft Riko, Jammer, Ears, Baby Blue)

12. I Still Don’t Care (ft Sway, SAS, Bigz, Sincere, Pyrelli)

13. My Love Remix (Sharifa ft Baby Blue)

14. Come Over Here (Swiss ft Baby Blue)

15. A Good Man

16. Ace & Invisible Drop

17. London N.E.W.S (ft Sway, Incisive, J2K, Baby Blue)

18. The World Will Know

19. Top of the World (snippet)

20. Want Me Back (ft Sharifa)

21. Smilin’

22. Outro

Bonus Track: UK chicks

Ghostface - Fishscale
Read Review

If you believe everything you read, you’ll be thinking that the highly-vaunted Baby Blue is going to be the next UK MC to blow up; that she has the mixture of talent and market appeal to shift big units, and you’ll be probably be expecting this mixtape to prove all that. If you do believe everything you read, this mixtape should provide you with a valuable life lesson.

Although the 20-year-old South London native provides glimpses of real lyrical ability and aesthetically she has appeal, the long, long list of collaborators who feature on this mixtape prove that she still has an awful lot of work to do. Emcees like Akala, Jammer, Bigz, Pyrelli and, most notably, Sway, all manage to outshine her without breaking sweat - although cunningly, she did bring SAS in to help balance things in her favour.

It’s important though to first make it clear that this is definitely a mixtape and not an album and that there’s a big difference. This is a good example of what a real mixtape is: a collection of Baby Blue’s recent guest appearances, freestyles, original tracks and remixes designed to introduce her as an artist and generate some hype for the album to come. This distinction dictates that the collection is going to be a mixed affair.

Among the highlights are ‘I Don’t Care’ (and the re-vocalled ‘I Still Don’t Care’), a top-quality Nutty P production based on cleverly worked horns and strings samples, and ‘Roll Wid Us’, another track that’s received air time but which is a departure into grime on which Baby Blue appears with Akala, Riko, Jammer and Ears.

Also, on tracks like ‘Dreamin’’, ‘Smilin’’ and ‘Love Story’, Baby Blue proves that she does have lyrical dexterity and is able to write well-structured conceptual songs in which her words tell a story. However, on too much of the rest of her material, her words just fill bars without any real purpose.

There can’t be anything more boring or played out than rappers rapping about rapping. In second place in the familiarity-breeds-contempt stakes, has to be rappers rapping about how good they are. The only exceptions to these rules are when rappers are able to express the same message but in new and creative ways. For example, this is how Sway does it on ‘Still Don’t Care’: ‘You’re not as good as me/That’s just too bad/You’re going to have to come to terms with it/Like a school bag.’ Take a bow Sway.

The one thing that Baby Blue does have in common with the greatest and most memorable MCs, is that her voice is distinctive. For example, if you hear a track by KRS-1, Biggie Smalls or Jay-Z, or Rodney P, Roots Manuva or Skinnyman, you know it’s them just from the first few words. Unfortunately though, Baby Blue’s voice is distinctive in that it makes her sound about 12! When the subject-matter does stray from the well-trodden path of hip hop cliché and into adult subjects, such as her first-person depiction of a physically abused mother who turns to stripping, her pre-pubescent soprano causes some obvious problems.

On one of the interludes Sway wonders, in reference to the mixtape title, what exactly the world will know? Well, as a result of this mixtape it knows that Baby Blue is decent, but that Sway is about the best the UK has to offer. But don’t worry Blue, there’s still time until you have to release your first album. You don’t need to come to terms with it yet, just pick up Sway’s ‘This Is My Demo’ and get studying.

Rating: 2 out of 5

Top 3 tracks:
I Don’t Care
Roll Wid Us
Love Story ‘05

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